It was always assumed so, as far as I recall. But you'll note in the linked post that it was prompted by confusion in an earlier WHEDONesque thread, where people were discussing additional episodes or even just script orders.

If Fox gives the "go ahead" for a second season in the Spring 2009, couldn't the writers be back in the writing room Summer 2009? With fresh Season 2 episodes ready to go Fall 2009?

Nothing in Fox's statements says that a second season would have to be another mid-season schedule, so in theory yes, as near as I can tell. If they, say, renewed Dollhouse in, say, May, and intended an October premiere, that would give them five months before something had to be on the air.

However, the other confusing part on this is the question of the sets. If Fox doesn't have to decide on Season Two until Spring (although they could decide later, once Dollhouse is airing), what do they do with the sprawling set? Leave it up and render an entire soundstage unusable by anyone else in the meantime?

Just when will they be finished (once they get to it) shooting episode 13 anyway?

Nothing about any of this seems that out of the ordinary.

That might be true, but obviously people are confused about how the status works as they finish up the 13.

Originally, if I recall correctly, Dollhouse was not picked up as a mid-season show from the start. Didn't we all assume at the beginning that it was a Fall show, with a small order to start with, and only later did it get moved to January (and then February)?

So, really, the confusion comes from the fact that it originally was a Fall show, where the question "what happens after the initial order" made sense in the context of Season One.

But once it got moved to a mid-season show, I guess maybe we didn't all re-adjust our thinking to seeing it as a show that would have a shorter Season One.

Well, but the Fox position apparently is that Season One is thirteen episodes, period. That means there is no shooting any more episodes than that unless it gets renewed. So that argument is a non-starter anyway.

Really, I'm trying to stop thinking about the set issue until I understand when episode 13 would be wrapped, because until I know that, I don't even know how for long or for how short a time we're talking about.

Yeah, I'm thinking it was more along the lines of a presumption on most people's part when Fox first picked up the show. It originally started filming in April, after all, so it seemed a reasonable thing to assume at the time, heh. But looking back, yeah, it was at least as early as May that "mid-season" was being mentioned.

I actually like shorter seasons. Many excellent series follow this format, and I find there is less filler. For instance, consider BSG: in its 22 (or a similar number) episode seasons, there tends to be throwaway--or, perhaps more appropriately, one-offs--that don't contribute to the overall story and are seemingly forgotten within the canon of the series. However, in the latter part of BSG, when shorter seasons have been implemented, the narrative is much more concentrated and the episodes are more to the point. The same is true for Lost, which recently had its best season IMO because of the (strike) shortened season 4. So I'm not worried about a shorter Dollhouse season, as these tend to promote higher quality serials and, hopefully, cheaper box sets. ;)

So if they wrap in January, and if they end up not deciding on Season Two until close to episode 13 in May, that's a three or four month period.

Assuming that Fox really means it when they say putting Dollhouse on Fridays means they can afford to give it twelve to thirteen weeks to establish itself and gather an audience, would they leave the sets up, rendering the sound stage unusable, for that length of time?

That's not a "what does this mean for Dollhouse" question, by the way. I'm genuinely curious about how they'd look at the asset of the sound stage for a calendar period of a full quarter.

I'm wondering how much of the set was built to be modular. It may be possible to take the set down instead of "tearing" it apart, and then put the components into storage if they need to free up space. If it was mostly like this, it wouldn't be too hard to put everything back together even on a different stage.

Does anyone know what happened with the Firefly set between the show's cancellation and the movie? That might be a good indicator.

I believe most of the set was rebuilt for Serenity, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I wouldn't think that that's a good indicator: a movie from an already cancelled tv-show made by a different company, does not have a one-on-one correspondence with a tv show that may or may not return the next year on the same network :).

But, nontheless, a good point: I also think storing most of the set and rebuilding later seems like the safest bet. But I have no clue how these things go in actual practice.

I was just wondering about how the set was built. The reason I brought up Firefly was to judge rather or not a complex set could be taken down and put in storage. If it had to be rebuilt for the movie (and hats off to whoever did it because it looks exactly like the original to me,) than that isn't a good sign.

But that was years ago, so stage construction might have changed, or have been designed differently for Dollhouse.

The Firefly set, if I'm remembering what I've read and heard correctly, was kept up for quite a while after the show was cancelled, but they did eventually take it down and a new one had to be built for the movie - based on stills from the DVDs.

Shey, I thought they DID mention Dollhouse at the end of T:TSCC. They said something along the lines of "T:TSCC will be returning on February 13th with the premiere of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse... blah blah". I guess I could have dreamt it, though. I'll check my DVR tonight.